Letter to the editor: Graffiti galore

Recently, Joshua Tree Park was in the news for graffiti vandalism done on boulders. It was so disturbing that they decided to shut down the park. That is probably a first for that type of incident in our area.

Guess what? Joshua Tree has nothing on us here in the Eastern Sierra when it comes to graffiti. Huge panels have been discovered high in the Chalk Bluffs in the past. We are not talking about amateur scribbling but the work of serious, professional graffiti artists.

I recently came across this new one out in Buttermilk by the White Cap Mine. Just another headache for the forest service to clean up.

Things have gotten so bad around here lately that they have to leave a can of paint down at the silo off Dixon near Hwy 6. Bless their hearts for cleaning that mess up, whoever they are.

99% of our graffiti around here is in partying areas and gang related. That is the reality of the situation in 2013.

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We had the same problem in the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine a few years back…I discovered some near the painted rock and on Tuttle Creek Road…Reported it to the Sheriffs office,and they said they would look into it…Within minutes of leaving,I found out on my own who had done it,and reported who I found it to be.The Sheriff’s office said little they could do about it unless they are seen doing it.Next,I reported it to BLM,and a couple weeks later it had been removed.

“A bullet in the head will put a stop to the problem.” chides “Mark.”
Somebody has been watching way too many Bruce Willis films.
You don’t happen to own an AK-47 and hate the government – do you, Mark?

That group that likes to be called “The Greatest Generation” (a subject for another time that can easily be contradicted) had “Kilroy was here” as the graffiti of the day. This was seen everywhere in the 40s pop culture.

In the United States the mischievous face and the phrase became a national joke… The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but where it turned up. The major Kilroy graffiti fad ended in the 1950s, but today people all over the world still scribble the character and “Kilroy was here” in schools, trains, and other similar public areas.

This mode of expression (graffiti) is nothing new. And I must admit, at least the artwork of today is much more elaborate and artistic.